Court Rules in Favor of USDA Project

April 3, 2002

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will be allowed to continue the HACCP-based Inspection Models Project (HIMP), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a decision affirming a lower court ruling. Although the court stated that the current program does not conflict with the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act, HIMP still may face challenges, according to the American Meat Institute.

"First, the union may elect to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court. Second, the appellate court went out of its way to state that this decision applies only to the pilot program," said AMI.

Specifically, the court said: "If the USDA undertakes a rulemaking to adopt as a permanent change something along the lines of the modified program, experience with the program's operation and its effectiveness will doubtless play a significant role. For this and other reasons, our opinion today may not necessarily foreshadow the outcome of judicial review of such future regulations."

AMI believes the court of appeals seems willing to defer to the agency's discretion regarding the test program. "The court's statement, however, is a proviso that if FSIS moves forward with rulemaking to incorporate HIMP into the agency's regulations, this ruling is no guarantee how the court will rule if there are future challenges similar to the one presented by the union in this case."

Elsa Murano, USDA under secretary for food safety, said, "This pilot project is a new idea, designed to modernize on-line slaughter inspection. Through HIMP, information on product defects is gathered in real-time, helping plants make immediate corrections when problems occur in their processes. HIMP is one program in our efforts to continually improve and enhance our meat and poultry inspection system. This court decision will allow us to try new ideas that are based on science and provide a safer meat and poultry supply for Americans."